The alfaowner forums have grown tremendously over the last year and we thank all of you for being a part of this fast growing community.

In order to keep the forums running well and to prevent future problems, please follow these simple rules for the forums. If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to contact one of the Staff Members who will be more than happy to help you.

General Rules:
While debating and discussion is fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts. Our decision is final in these matters.

Multiple or repeated posting in order to increase your post count is not allowed. Advertising, spamming and trolling is not allowed. This includes using the forum email and Private message/Paging system to spam other members.

Please wait a reasonable amount of time before bumping posts. For technical 'how-to' questions this should be at least 24 hours. For specific troubleshooting issues, use at least 12 hours as a guideline.

We also do not allow posts that are sexual in nature or violate the alfaowner community standards. The AO team shall be the sole arbitrator of what does and what does not violate community standards. Discussion of illegal activities such as software and music piracy and other intellectual property violations are not allowed.

Each member is allowed only (x1) login account. Registering with multiple accounts is forbidden and action will be taken, we also reserve the right to publish to the community who is using multiple logins.

Whilst we are quite happy to have constructive comparative conversations about others products, we will not tolerate blatant adverts. Also, we would appreciate it if you refrain from blatant bashing of suppliers unless you have had dealings yourselves and can prove this to other members if asked. (Scanned receipt etc)

We reserve the right to remove offensive posts without notice; however the Thread Manager will continue to send you a PM to advise you when and why your post/thread was removed.

If you are going to post non-English on these forums, please also post an English Translation of your post.

Whilst these rules cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way.

You cannot post any affiliate or referral links, or post anything asking for a referral. Such posts will be subject to removal.

We also reserve the right to remove accounts from anyone who willfully violates the forum rules, as access to our forums are a privilege and not a right. A banned/restricted customer is still entitled to view our site but not post to it whilst a ban is in place.

Any of the following threads/posts of these types below will be deleted:

We do not allow members to post threads or to send private messages or emails to others here that advertise or solicit any products, services, funds or donations. Explicit advertising and soliciting in signatures is also prohibited.

Links in signatures must follow these guidelines:
A link and promotional text for a site that is not commercial and does not contain product(s) and/or service(s) is allowed, provided the site is not sexual or does not violate the Alfaowner community standards. The Alfaowner team shall be the sole arbitrator of what does and what does not violate community standards. (Examples include sites about drugs and/or sex.) Duplicate links to the same URL in a sig are not allowed.

* The maximum width is 500 pixels and
* The maximum height is 125 pixels and
* The maximum file size is 150 kB

Avatars
Avatars that may be confused with official staff avatars are not allowed.
Avatars that may be offensive to others are not allowed. Alfaowner team shall be the sole arbitrator of what does and what does not violate community standards.

General Discussion Forums
The General Discussion forum is where Alfa Romeo owners and fans can gather to chat about almost anything, however, it should be Alfa Romeo related.

We use an Infraction system
This has been designed to automate the management of misbehaving members. It works much the same way as points on a driving licence, when you get enough points, you recieve an automatic ban.

Failure to comply with the rules will result in either:

1. a warning being issued
2. the issue of a number of 'penalty points' according to the rule broken, or
3. a ban of a specified or indeterminate period.

Open, free speech and sensible constructive discussions are encouraged but another members point of view must be respected.

• Use of inappropriate usernames is forbidden.
• Bad, foul or inappropriate language must not be used.
• Threatening, insulting or abusive language or comments must not be made.
• Racist comments must not be made.
• Sexist comments must not be made.
• No form of spam/cross posting may be made.
• No form of commercial advertisement may be posted without EXPRESS permission from the site owner.
• No post may be made that could be considered provocative, its purpose just to start an argument.
• No posts containing images of an inappropriate nature may be made, including nudity.

Rule breaking - 2 points.
These issues are those that are not excessive and not covered by specific penalties.
These 2 points will have a life span of 3 months. When a total of 10 of these points have been reached (5 offences) a 3 month ban will be implemented.
The posting of spam will result in an instant 10 points and therefore a ban.
Unsolicited advertising will gain 5 points. A repeated offence will therefore equal an instant ban.

Once a 3 month ban has begun, it will always run the full course.

How to report a post

In the bottom left corner of each post are a number of icons, there is one with a exclamation mark, clicking on this will open a small form that you fill in which will send your report to all moderators of that forum. They will act or contact you as necessary.

A polite reminder that:
You should never give out your alfaowner logon credentials to anyone, and you should not disclose any of our member server logins and/or passwords to anyone except through the Alfaowner.com online club support system. You will take full responsibility if you disclose this information to anyone else.

We are sure that each of you understands why these rules need to be reminded.

Happy motoring,

Alfaowner Team